The Host Tops King and the Clown

Korean monster thriller "The Host" smashed all box office records last weekend, supplanting "The King and the Clown" as the highest grossing film in Korean history. The film's distributor Showbox announced Sunday September 3rd that The Host had attracted more than 12.37million viewers in the shortest amount of time, just 38 days after it was released.

After holding the top spot at the Box Office for five consecutive weeks, it dropped into second place as thousands of Koreans flocked to see Japan sink in Japanese disaster movie The Sinking of Japan which debuted at number one.

With the Chuseok holiday season only weeks away, "The Host", which is still playing on 280 of the nations screens, is expected to top 14 million admissions before retiring. That would mean nearly 30% of Korea's population of 48 million will have seen the film.

It will now compete with previous all-time record holder "The King and the Clown" and art house maverick director Kim Ki-duk's "Time" as the candidate film to represent Korea in the Academy Awards Best Foreign Picture nomination. An international jury set up by KOFIC selected the three films and will submit them to Academy Award organizers October 1st.

All three films will screen in different sections of the 31st Toronto International Film Festival this September 7th to 16th.The two top-grossers are slated to open in the US early next year.

Nigel D'Sa (KOFIC)